This is a valid question. Asking any person on the street will only result in biased opinions and stories about the time they got rabies from the kind of pet they hate. I, on the other hand, will supply you with truth, justice and the rabies vaccine.
Pets are a great addition to any home that needs just a little more life. No curtain color or carpet pattern will bring as much life to your house as a pet will. They are living, breathing creatures.
Having one in your home will literally bring life to your humble abode. Now the type of life you want in your home is entirely up to you. “Normal” people have pets that they can hold, pet and take videos of as they chase laser pointers in a circle until they barf and then eat the barf.
Different people have pets like snakes, spiders, komodo dragons and other animals that under no circumstances should ever be let out of whatever is keeping them from killing people. Are you a normal person or a different person? Whatever you are, you must know what you want.
Speaking of which, what do you want? Do you want a friend who you don’t have to buy birthday presents for? If so, get a dog. They’ll be the ones to bring you dead, mutilated presents everyday.
There will also be surprises in the yard that can only be found with the nicest, most expensive shoes you own. Do you have narcissistic tendencies and need to be put in your place? If so, get a cat.
They’ll walk around your house with a measured strut that denotes severe ego and pompousness. They will claw your couch legs to nubs because cats hate nice things that aren’t clawed to nubs. Cats and dogs are the animals that dominate the pet market.
People have invested in cats and dogs. Sometimes there is a cat and dog surplus and it rains cats and dogs.
Needless to say, but still said for the sake of clarity and an extra sentence in this column, cats and dogs are appropriate starter pets. They’re resilient, loving and essentially easy to maintain.
Though for the easiest maintenance, fish would be recommended. You shake some flakes in their bowl every once in a while and scoop out the belly-up ones when you shake a few too many flakes.
However, fish do not like hugs. Again, for hugs, playing fetch and going outside, cats and dogs are preferred. People tend to prefer dogs a little more than cats, though. Dogs can be small and cute, or they can be huge and have the ability to rend flesh from bone.
Cats can also be small and cute, or they can be huge and have the ability to sprint across African plains and sink their pointed teeth into antelope throats. Small and cute cats are easier to acquire.
Dogs are domesticated wolves, so they are carnivorous and will protect their master. Cats will be on the side of whoever has a handful of Meow Mix and something fluffy on a stick. Dogs will wrestle with you and have a great time running out to bring a Frisbee you tossed across the yard.
If you so much as make a threatening motion to a cat, they’ll cut you so you look like you high-fived Edward Scissorhands, while swimming through a sea of razorblades and broken glass. If you throw something to a cat, it will attack the object furiously and then leave it there for you to pick up.
A cat will slowly paw at a glass of water for five minutes until it spills and then walk away. A cat will wait until the most crucial point of a video game and then meow in your face.
A cat will try and eat your food and no matter how many times you swat it away and push it down, it will never learn. Of all the warm sleeping locations in your home, it will choose your laptop keyboard when you’re writing an essay.
A dog will be excited to be with you and will come running when you call its name. No matter what name you call your cat, in any pitch, in any nickname variation, it will keep staring at the wall.
However, both cats and dogs will step on your crotch when leaving your lap. That is a given.
I am a cat person, but the best animal to have as a pet is an animal that pleases you, as long as you are willing to gain the responsibility that is another living, breathing, pooping creature. If not, there’s always fish.